Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“I know Hershel’s background. He comes from a place where they lynch Negroes and castrate people—that is, when the family isn’t diddling one another. Do I need to start carrying a weapon?”

“I feel like knocking your teeth down your throat.”

“I don’t think that’s a very rational attitude. I don’t want trouble with your friend. And I certainly don’t want to hurt him.”

“What do you call ruining a man’s marriage?”

He rested his forearm on the side of my desk and gazed wistfully out the window. “Did you spend a lot of time with your father when you were a kid?”

“No, I spent it with my grandfather. My father died at the bottom of a bell hole.”

“I think the time spent with one’s father figure makes all the difference in the life of a young fellow, don’t you?”

“What kind of boyhood do you think Hershel Pine had? Can you imagine the kind of public school he attended, the kind of medical care he had?”

“Actually, I envy a fellow like that. You know, growing up on a cotton farm and squirrel hunting and going to barbecues and fish fries and outdoor dances, things like that. There’s something a bit grand about it. Its simplicity, I mean.”

I realized I was sitting next to a man who had probably lived inside a soap bubble his entire life and had no idea what privation was, an

d no awareness of the travail that people of Hershel’s background endured.

“Does Linda Gail plan to leave Hershel?” I asked.

“I really don’t know. That’s their business anyway. Why should we be discussing something like that?”

“Why? Because he worships his wife. Because he’s coming apart. Because he stayed alive from Kasserine Pass through the invasion of Italy and France to the Ardennes Forest so he could come back to her.”

“I see what you mean. Yes, he seems a good fellow. That’s why I’m asking for your help. Come on, have some raw oysters and a beer with me.”

“Let me tell you how I feel about your father, Roy,” I said. “No man is more cowardly than one who uses a surrogate to injure others. That’s what your father has done. My wife and I go from day to day wondering who your father will send next into our lives. Right now it’s Hubert Timmons Slakely. Tomorrow it will be somebody else.”

Roy looked at me a long time before he spoke. “My father doesn’t care enough about people to hurt them. Why do you think you’re so special?”

“His company was responsible for my father’s death.”

“He could settle your suit for pocket change.”

“I’m not planning on suing your father. I want to see him in prison.”

He pinched his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “In the state of Texas? What world do you live in, Weldon?”

“The United States of America.”

“You still have those oil leases around New Roads, Louisiana, don’t you?”

“We brought in two dusters on those leases. They almost bankrupted us,” I said.

“But you still have the leases?”

“What if we do?”

“I’d hold on to them. Will you talk to Hershel?”

“No, I will not. It’s time you carry your own water, partner.”

“You have it all, Weldon, but you don’t realize it. Others covet what you take for granted. You’re an honorable man. Your wife loves you. You’re the captain of your soul. With time, others will take all that away from you. That’s what you fail to understand. They don’t want your possessions. They want your soul.”

“And how will they take that from me?”